The surprising source of most of the world's oxygen
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Make every day more interesting. Each day a surprising fact opens a world of fascinating information for you to explore. Did you know that….? 
| | Original photo by tonaquatic/ iStock |
| About 80% of the Earth's oxygen comes from plankton. | Prochlorococcus, a species of ocean-dwelling phytoplankton, only measures about 0.6 micrometers. It's the world's smallest organism capable of photosynthesis — so small that 20,000 or so can reside in a single water droplet. But its impacts are so huge that an estimated one out of every five breaths you take is thanks to this minuscule microbe. Prochlorococcus, along with many other types of plankton (organisms carried along by the tides and currents), create as much as 80% of the world's oxygen. They also play a big role in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, capturing about 40% of all the CO2 produced. That's equivalent to the amount that would be captured by roughly four Amazon rainforests.
Phytoplankton such as Prochlorococcus produce oxygen through photosynthesis, the same way plants on land do, by soaking up the sun for energy and releasing oxygen into the ocean and atmosphere. Also like plants on land, phytoplankton are full of the compound chlorophyll, which gives some of the microbes their green color. The entire ocean ecosystem rests upon these vital, oxygen-burping organisms, which provide essential nutrients for beings from the smallest krill to the largest blue whale.
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 | | Oxygen is the most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere. | | |
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| Oxygen is the most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere. |  |  |
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| The word "plankton" comes from the Greek "planktos," meaning "__." |  |
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 | Numbers Don't Lie |
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 | | Atomic number of oxygen on the periodic table of elements | | 8 |
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| | | Year Joseph Priestley discovered the element eventually known as oxygen | | 1774 |
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| | Year the word "plankton" was coined, originally in German | | 1887 |
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| | | Episode of "SpongeBob Squarepants" introducing the character Sheldon J. Plankton | | 3 |
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 | Jellyfish are plankton. |
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| People often picture plankton as microscopic microbes or algae swirling in the world's oceans, but that's only partially true. Plankton come in two main types, phytoplankton and zooplankton, and zooplankton are actually animals. These creatures are classified as plankton if they're unable to overcome the ocean's current under their own power. Most fish, reptiles, and mammals can use powerful fins or tails to navigate their watery worlds, but creatures such as krill, mollusks, and jellyfish must go with the flow. Many of these zooplankton plummet to the ocean's depths during the day to avoid predators, only to return to the surface at night to feed on phytoplankton. Scientists consider this daily cycle to be the largest animal migration in the world, in terms of total number of animals — which is especially notable since it happens every 24 hours. | | |
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posted by June Lesley at 5:38 AM
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